Wednesday, 7 June 2017

Nokia enables companies in MEA to capatilise IoT opportunities

Organisations across the world are investing in the digital transformation to remain relevant to their customers and survive disruption. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one element in this transformation journey and has the potential to transform every industry, even traditional ones.

According to Dr Muneer Zuhdi, Director of Solution Line Management in the Global Digital Economy Practice at Nokia, IoT brings huge opportunities to businesses in MENA, looking to reduce cost, generate new revenue opportunities and enhance customer experience.

“There are unlimited possibilities for the usage of IoT. IoT applications will define future cities and impact every aspect of people’s lives. These applications aim to make cities smart, safe, and sustainable. The goal is to improve the quality of people’s lives, enhance their safety from natural or man-made disasters, and maximise the efficiency of the utilisation of resources,” he says.

Nokia supports these IoT applications with a shared, secure, and scalable networks and platforms. “This enables our customers to minimise the incremental investment required to provide IoT applications, introduce new IoT applications without disruption to existing services, and ensure the end-to-end security for the new solutions.” The IoT platform from Nokia, branded as IMPACT, comes pre-integrated with several use cases that improve people’s lives while making businesses and cities smart, safe, and sustainable.

“Video analytics, for example, utilises an advanced machine learning algorithm for crowd and traffic management, which helps with public safety. Smart lighting and fleet management enhances the sustainability of natural and business or city resources. Finally, applications like smart parking achieve multiple goals in terms of making people work and live smarter by eliminating time waste, generating new revenues for businesses or cities, and reducing road congestions, pollution, and fuel waste,” says Dr Zuhdi.

He says IoT has been gaining great traction in Smart Cities and Nokia has been involved in multiple Smart City opportunities across the MENA region, each with their own challenges and priorities. “Nokia is in a unique position to be the trusted partner for our customers on this journey. It starts with being able to utilise the expertise of Bell Labs to consult with our customers and guide them on developing a strategy and plan that is tailored to their market.”

Nokia has all the building blocks for the Smart City end-to-end solution whether it is over fixed or mobile network. The solution is highlighted by the IMPACT IoT platform, which is a scalable, horizontal, and multi-tenant platform. It enables cities to securely host applications from multiple agencies in addition to their own applications. Nokia also provides the end to end security and services.

“Nokia has also been investing in building ecosystem of partners focusing on different IoT applications and performing technology and market trials. This enables us to evaluate concept and expedite the delivery of new applications and use cases while partnering with the most innovative companies. Nokia can really help in every phase of this journey, from strategic planning to ensuring that the network is built right first time and optimised for the smart city applications, to finally providing access to the most innovative use cases to cities and their businesses and residents,” says Dr Zuhdi.